2010-09-04T14:37:53+01:00

p169 ...: after all, learning means changing.

Disclaimer: continuing on the journey started by "What if the knowledge is not in the answers but in the questions?" question, I've read a book called Leading with Questions. Here are some quotes, but most important questions that I found interesting:

  • p14 Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?
  • p17 ... I believe in the capacity of the people who have worked with me. I truly think that leaders who tries to know it all and tells everyone what to do is doomed to failure.
  • p23 Did I clearly articulate the goals I was trying to achieve?
  • Did I give people the time and resources they needed to succees?
  • Did I give then enough training to get the job done properly?
  • Why do we do it this way?
  • p31 Why is this the way it is?
  • Do we understand why we got there?
  • p37 What worked and what went well?
  • What could we do better?
  • p40 Is this really worth my effort at this time?
  • Can you share with me why this particular issue bothers you so much?
  • p53 Those who have the inability to ask questions have problems with their ego.
  • You cannot think your way into courage; you act your way into courage.
  • p67 What are your goals?
  • How would you describe the current reality?
  • p69 What have you tried before?
  • What do you want to do next?
  • p70 Why did this work?
  • p71 Can that be done in any other way?
  • What resources have we never used?
  • What would happen if you did nothing at all?
  • What other options do you have?
  • p79 What possibilities does this open up?
  • What can we learn from this?
  • p90 If you actully meet resistance, the best thing is to stay quiet. You have to give a person time to think.
  • p91 Peter Drucker and others have noted that the most important thing in communication "is to hear what isn't being said".
  • p105 What inspires us?
  • What challenges us?
  • What encourages us?
  • How solid are our relationships among ourselves?
  • How can we keep ourselves motivated and encouraged?
  • p111 Sometimes they fear that questions may bring them unwelcome information.
  • People don't resist change as much as they resist being changed.
  • How do you feel when I ask you questions?
  • p145 Whether we are facing a technical or an adaptive problem, the obvious (but unfortunately uncommon) first step is first to be sure the group knows what the problem is.
  • p150 What goals re in conflict?
  • p151 What does each side want?
  • p154 What do you want to keep?
  • What do you want to change?
  • What do you want me to do?
  • What are you afraid I'll do?
  • What else do you want to ask me?
  • p158 Why do you do business with us?
  • Why do you do business with our competitors?
  • How and when have we made it hard for you to do business with us?
  • What will you need from us in the future?
  • If you were me, what's one thing you'd change about my organization?
  • What's the most effective way to tell you that we are grateful for your business?
  • Suppose this organization could choose just three things to do more differently to dramatically enhance our customers' loyalty - what would they be?
  • p168 Leaders need to develop what I call kaleidoscope thinking - a way of constructing patterns from the fragments of data available, and then manipulating them to form different patterns.
  • p169 Organizations that create learning environments make change a part of organizational life: after all, learning means changing.
  • p171 Asking the right questions enables leaders to discover what is the right thing to do; answering them allows managers to do the right thing.